Meurer v. Meurer

Citations

• 119 Pa. 115
• 12 A. 868
• 1888 Pa. LEXIS 533

Syllabus

<p>1. A court in Pennsylvania has no power, at the instance of a third person, to institute a summary inquiry and to adjudge a party to a pending suit to be incompetent by reason of mental weakness to have the care and control of his property and estate and unable to protect his rights and interests involved in the proceeding.</p> <p>2. Since the act of June 13,1836, P. L. 592, relating to lunatics and habitual drunkards and prescribing a special mode of proceeding to deter-</p> <p>■ mine the fact of insanity or habitual drunkenness, as the case may be, such inquiries must be conducted in the mode prescribed by that act and its supplements, and not otherwise.</p> <p>3. In a proceeding by bill in equity, the plaintiff charged that he was the legitimated son and sole heir at law of a decedent; that the defendant was an illegitimate son of the plaintiff’s mother but not of the plaintiff’s father and both had been brought up in the same family; that, by fraudulent advantage taken of the plaintiff’s ignorance and mental</p> <p>. weakness and by fraudulent misrepresentations, the defendant had obtained from the plaintiff his title to the real estate of his deceased father:</p> <p>Held, that, these and other facts being satisfactorily established by the ’ evidence, it was not error to decree the cancellation of the conveyances; that the defendant should forthwith deliver up possession of the real estate to the plaintiff, and that an account should be taken of the rents, issues and profits.</p>